


The Doctor Dies

by AllanIV



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 10:55:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5454095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllanIV/pseuds/AllanIV
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is trapped on a spaceship with alien beasts hunting him, his final act is to sacrifice himself to ensure Clara and the surviving crew get out alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Death

**Author's Note:**

> Please give feedback. Positive or negative, the more particular and specific the better. I'm using fan-fiction as a way to explore different elements of writing (in this case an attempt at emotive work) so tips and feedback are well received.

The Doctor hurtled down the narrow corridor of the ship, Clara close behind. The angry shrieks of the alien beast echoing down the passage as they and what was left of the crew rushed toward the bridge.  
“Doctor!” Clara shouted, “Where are we going Doctor?!”  
“I have a plan!” The Doctor shouted back over another shriek echoing from the ducts below.  
“Does this plan involve us dying?” The former head technician of the Saint Joan shouted.  
“Not you, no!” The Doctor shouted back.  
Clara's ears twitched. From the moment they'd arrived on this ship, she'd had a strange feeling like something was out of place. The Doctor had tried to explain it to her, but none of what he said made any sense, she'd just gone and trusted him. But what she heard just now…  
“Doctor?” She asked warily.  
Their was a sudden whoosh of air and screech of metal as a sharp bone-like scythe came rushing down from the ventilation shaft above them, piercing through the metal like it was paper and slashing at the air below it. Clara barely managed to pull up in time, leaning back sharply and falling into the arms of the female freighter pilot behind her.  
“Doctor!” They shouted!  
The Doctor spun about, whipping his screwdriver around like a pistol and setting it to full volume, emitting a piercing whine that hurt the ears. Clara and the three crew members covered their ears, crying out in pain, but that was nothing compared to the horrid shriek emitted by the thing in the ventilation. The noise it made as it scampered back through the ducts told them they were safe, for a while.  
“Can't you set that to a frequency that hurts them not us!” The technician, David, shouted.  
“Only frequency that hurts them hurts human ears too,” The Doctor replied. After analysing the hole in the shaft above them he glanced down at the crew. “And now they know which part of the ship we're on.”  
“Well then,” Clara said, jumping sharply to her feet. “We should get a move on.”  
“Right.” The Doctor replied, and once again they were sprinting down the tunnel.  
The bridge was close. As they neared the hatchway that led to the control deck they heard the screeches of the alien infestation growing louder and louder. Clara's heart was racing. The rest of the crew were hot on her heels. The Doctor held out the screwdriver as they ran, triggering ti to automatically open each door as they rushed forward to enter.  
“Come on, come on!” He yelled. There was a heavy thump as something dropped onto the passage behind them. “Run faster!”  
The bridge hatch was right in front of them. The Doctor aimed his screwdriver, shouting loudly at the piece of junk to function. The hatch flipped open, letting out a burst of smoke and hot air.  
“In! In! Everyone in!” The Doctor shouted. He did a head count as they rushed through. Clara. David the technician. Mila, pilot of the freighter parked in the docking bay right below them. Dorothy the attendant. The creature was getting closer. Once they were all through he jumped through the hole and slammed the hatch shut behind them.  
“Well now wasn't that bracing,” The Doctor rasped, his lungs not yet full of air.  
“Bracin'?” David gasped. “You call that bracin'?!”  
“Well far better than a run in the park don't you think?” The Doctor replied.  
“What's a park?” Mila asked.  
“Doesn't matter.” The Doctor replied, now show me where are the controls.”  
David took The Doctor over to the main command console, Mila went with them, pointing out the controls and what each button did. Clara took Dorothy over to a corner.  
“Are you alright?” She asked gently.  
“They're dead,” Dorothy whispered. “They're all dead.”  
“The Doctor will get us out of this,” Clara said, trying to strengthen her resolve.  
“I don't want to die.”  
“Hey,” Clara snapped, “We're not going to die, The Doctor's going to get us out of this, isn't that right Doctor?!” Clara spun around to look at the Doctor.  
“Hmm? Yes, yes.” The Doctor replied absently. His face was a contorted mix of concern and deep thought, a look that Clara had only seen on him in times of desperation. Not wanting Dorothy to get discouraged, she stood and walked over to him.  
“What's the plan Doctor?”  
“The plan,” The Doctor replied, “Is to get you all on that freighter of yours and flying out of here.”  
“That's no good, the freighter only has a few hours worth of fuel,” Mila responded.  
“That's more than enough.” The Doctor said, flicking on a few of the cameras on the console. Grizzly scenes of death littered every corner of the ship, and hear and there was the flash of dark things racing through the shadows.  
“How is that enough?” Mila asked.  
“Once you're off the ship, my TARDIS can locate you and get you all off the vessel.”  
Mila had a confused face. “What?”  
“It's a time machine, it can travel anywhere through space and time.”  
David blinked. “If it can travel anywhere through space and time why can't it pick us up here?”  
“Every part of this ship is emitting an electromagnetic pulse that interferes with the TARDIS' telemetry. If I try to fly her in here she'll most likely crash somewhere else in the ship and then we'd have no way of getting out.”  
“So it's the freighter or nothing.” Mila responded.  
“Wait, what about the escape pods?” Clara added. “This ship has escape pods right?”  
“All the escape pods are broken,” David spoke, he said the next sentence with a bit of a mumble. “They were next on my list to repair.”  
The Doctor hammered away at the controls.  
“I can put out a signal from here to give instructions to the TARDIS to meet you on the freighter once you're out of the field's range.” He held the screwdriver up in the air above him and made it hum for a few moments. “But you'll need to get moving now.”  
“Us, what about you?” Clara said. She didn't like it when he talked like this.  
“It's fine, I need to deal with these aliens first,” The Doctor said, he began flicking on more switches on the console. “These aliens don't like fire, so I'm going to torch every corner of the ship.”  
A sudden gout of flame appeared on three of the monitors, the recorded screeching of the alien beasts ringing through the speakers. There was another screech, louder, from just outside the hatch followed by a loud bang. They were starting to break in.  
“No time to talk, you four had better get moving.” The Doctor shouted. He locked eyes with Mila for a second and a look of understanding passed between them.  
“This way,” Mila said, indicating for David and Dorothy to follow her towards another exit.  
Clara held back. “Wait, no, how are you getting out?”  
The Doctor leaned down to her, cupped her cheeks with both hands and stared into her eyes for a moment.  
“I'll catch up with you later.” He assured her, then he turned his attention back to the console. Another jet of flame burst out of another section of the ship.  
“Come on Clara!” David shouted from the exit hatch. Reluctantly, Clara peeled off after them, every few steps throwing a glance back at her Doctor rushing about over the controls.  
“Clara!” The Doctor shouted. As she turned about she saw the Sonic Screwdriver come hurtling at her, and she caught it clumsily with both hands. Shocked and perplexed she glanced up and saw the expression on his face. It hadn't changed, if anything every line and wrinkle had increased tenfold. For a moment he looked like he was about to say something, some word or thing of importance, but then he simply spouted out the same thing she had heard him say countless times before, and that she would hear from him countless times again. “Run.”  
Clara ran. She didn't know which way she headed, only that they were heading deeper into the ship. She trusted that Mila knew where she was going as they ran through corridor after corridor, passing through electronic doors that opened only to David's security card.  
“Come on, come on!” David yelled, urging them to run as fast as they could. Dorothy lagged behind, her cheeks still wet from the tears she had wept before. Almost as one both Clara and Mila scooped up the poor girl by her shoulders and half pulled half carried her after David.  
“Docking bay four!” Mila shouted. David nodded and swiped the security access console to let them through.

On the bridge, The Doctor exhaled a deep breath. That was it. He'd said everything he needed to. Now he just had to focus on scorching the ship passages.

Clara and the crew rushed on board the freighter. Mila slammed her fist against the mechanism that operated the cargo bay doors. It wasn't until those doors had slammed shut that she allowed herself to breathe. Almost immediately after they slammed shut, they heard the dull sound of the speakers screeching that horrid sound all over the ship.  
“Well, that's that done, they're not getting in here now.”  
“Shouldn't we wait for The Doctor?” David asked, his voice suddenly trembling now that the adrenaline had stopped pumping.  
“The Doctor said we need to get out of range of the electromagnetic field first, so that's what we're going to do,” Mila said and began heading toward the cockpit.  
Dorothy was crying.  
“Hey, hey it's alright, we're safe now. The Doctor got us out.”  
Dorothy spoke between sniffles. “I... didn't want anyone else... to die.”  
“No one's died, see, we all got out safe,” Clara assured her, rubbing her shoulders affectionately. Behind her David grimaced.  
“He didn't.” Dorothy sniffed.  
Clara blinked. “Who?”  
Dorothy looked at her through red eyes. “The Doctor.”  
“She's referring to the emergency security protocols.” David said, talking through his grimace. “When fires start going through the ship the whole place goes on emergency lock down. Blast doors and everything, starting with the bridge.” David struggled to find the words. “He's trapped in there.”  
“What?” Clara gaped.  
“Only way in or out of the bridge now is to the docking bays, but there ain't no more ships for him to fly out with.”  
The freighter engine began to hum.  
“Well then we wait for him!” Clara snapped, stepping directly into David's personal space threateningly.  
“No good now,” Mila called down from the cockpit. “Where do you think all the aliens are heading?”  
“He can just keep that noise going though, it doesn't hurt him the way it hurts them.”  
“The speakers are only open so long as someone is in the control room operating them,” David answered. “If he leaves that control room the noise stops.”  
“So you're saying if we leave he's trapped there?” Clara repeated.  
David nodded. The engines began to roar.  
Clara slapped the mechanism for the freighter's cargo bay doors.  
“What the hell are you doing?!” David shouted over the roar of the engines and the din of the speaker's high-pitched wail.  
“I'm going after him!” Clara shouted back, holding up the sonic screwdriver she threw it over at David. “Use that to signal the TARDIS once you're outside!”  
“You're crazy! Come back!” David shouted. But it was too late. Clara had already jumped out the open doors as the ship began to lift off. David ran over, watching as she raced back to the passageways from whence they'd come.  
“Close the doors!” Mila shouted. Reluctantly, and with a note of finality, David slammed his fist against the controls. The last glimpse he got of her was of her hair flying behind her head as she escaped down the passageway.

The Doctor pressed another button and a gout of flame appeared on yet another monitor screen. Almost every room had been scorched now, and after every one more blast doors, alarms and security measures took place. The high-pitched noise he'd put out over the speakers continued to wail, but it wouldn't be long before the beasts overcame that. They'd be in there soon, and then there'd be no way out.  
On one of the last monitors he saw the freighter slipping out into deep space and he felt a warm glow in his heart. At least he'd managed to get them all off the ship. He'd managed to get them all safe. He thumbed the controls that set the docking bay on fire, and listened to the telltale whump of closing blast doors. If nothing else, he could be glad of this.  
Think! There had to be a way to get himself out somehow. He couldn't go back through the ship to find the place they'd landed the TARDIS, even without the blast doors there was only so far he could get without his screwdriver. If he left this room the aliens would tear him to pieces – they could smell Time Lord, and with so little of the ship left to navigate it would take them seconds to find him. The escape pods were useless, even if he managed to get one jettisoned the electro-magnetic field would be on the pods too and the lack of air-respiration would mean he'd die in-  
Hold on. He pulled up the schematics of the pods. Yes! Yes! The pods may have had an electro-magnetic field on them normally but that along with everything else about them was broken! If he could just get one of the pods off the ship, he could jump in it and escape! The TARDIS would find him, he just had to get off the ship.  
There was a hammering at the hatch again. More of them this time. There was a screech as their bone scythes began to cut their way through. It would only last a few more minutes, but that would be everything he needed. He pulled a map of the ship, plotted a route from the bridge to the nearest escape pods. Perfect. It wasn't much but it was a fighting chance. Taking one extra moment longer to memorise the path, he turned on his heel and ran out the door. As soon as he stepped outside the wail of the speakers stopped.  
It was a race against time now.

Clara stumbled onto the bridge seconds later. As soon as she'd left the deafening roar of the freighter's engines the noise The Doctor had thrown over the speakers had pained her ears, and she'd found herself barely able to walk the corridor back to the bridge. As soon as it had stopped she knew, The Doctor was no longer on the bridge.  
“Please don't be dead, please don't be dead, please don't be dead,” she repeated to herself. As she burst into the room she knew exactly what had happened.  
The beasts were still on the other side of the hatch, their scythes poking through as they tried to tear a whole through those thick ceramic-steel doors. On the monitor in front of her she saw the map to the escape pods, with the route highlighted. On one corner of the screen she saw a timer counting down, with the words “scorch protocol omega” written just above it.  
“Oh you clever, clever man,” she gasped. There were only minutes left on the clock, just enough time to race down to the escape pod and jetison. Taking an extra moment to memorise the path, she turned on her heel and began sprinting down the corridor. She couldn't be too far behind him.  
There was a loud shriek as the alien finally burst in through the hatch.

The Doctor jumped at the sound of alien beasts crawling through the ventilation shafts overhead. They were scampering in all directions, uncertain where to go to avoid the flames. They'd catch his scent in moments, he might only have a few seconds of headway before they came after him.  
Running headlong into a security door, he hammered the passcode he saw on the monitor into the console. The console bleeped and gave him a red light.  
“Aargh!” He shouted and thumbed the number in again. Again, it bleeped red.  
The Doctor breathed, he took a second to press the number in correctly. The machine bleeped green and the door opened. Stepping through he slammed it shut behind him, keying in the code for the door to lock behind him and rushed for the escape pod.  
The small sphere was barely large enough for a child, but nevertheless The Doctor found a way to cram himself inside it. Pulling the opening shut behind him, he began pressing buttons, hoping that at least the control panel would work.  
“Jettison sequence, activated,” the voice-over spoke comfortingly.  
“Aah,” The Doctor sighed, leaning back into his seat. He'd made it. In moments the pod would be flung out into space, the freighter would be saved, and he would be picked up by the TARDIS. Everyone safe.  
He cast one final glance back toward the ship, one final glance to see the death-trap he'd so narrowly avoided, and his face filled up with horror.  
There was Clara, slamming her fist against the window of the security door. The little red light of the console was flashing. Behind her, the alien creatures in the shadows were massing.  
“Clara,” The Doctor gasped. “CLARA!”  
“Escape pod, open the door!”  
“Jettison sequence has been activated.”  
“Open the door!”  
“Jettison sequence has been activated.”  
The Doctor spun around, his eyes locked with Clara. He saw her face. He could see the aliens stalking towards her, their bone-scythes glistening.  
“CLARA!” He shouted, slamming his foot against the pod door.

From behind the security door, Clara saw The Doctor begin kicking. He kicked it again, and again. She could see his mouth opening and closing, shouting something. No sound penetrated the barrier between them, only the image of him shouting and kicking the pod doors again and again. Behind her, she could hear the cold, bristling crackle of the aliens behind her.  
She felt a cold wet tear slide down her cheek.

“CLARA!” The Doctor shouted. The suddenly the corridor behind the security door burst into flames. Almost immediately after the escape pod burst out of its holding and jettisoned into space.  
“Jettison sequence, successful.” The voice-over spoke triumphantly. But the Doctor felt no triumph. He felt only a hole.


	2. The Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dealing with the aftermath, and the final message.

The Doctor stepped onto his TARDIS, alone. The familiar sounds of his ship filled his ears, and the warmth of its presence surrounded him. But he could not feel it. As if lost in a dream he walked over to the TARDIS console. There was a big, glowing switch that throbbed on and off, indicating a message. Without thinking he pressed the switch.  
With a slight flickering of static, a holographic image appeared in front of him. It was of a scene he'd seen not long before, the bridge of that dying ship. He saw his own face staring back at him, a stern, worrisome face. There was a moment of awkward pause, and then that face began to talk.  
“Clara,” it spoke. “You're watching this because this is my last message to you. I'm not going to make it off this ship. These things that are after us, they're in the vents and the passage between the freighter and me will be crawling with them not long after I shut off the siren.”  
The face on the screen breathed.  
“I've lived a long life, Clara, don't feel bad that I'm gone this is my choice. The TARDIS will take you home safe. Don't try to come back for me, it won't work, I've already sent a message encrypted in this video to prevent the TARDIS from returning to this place and time again.”  
“Aargh!” The Doctor smashed his fist against the console, sending an assortment of high-tech baubles and gadgets scattering across the room. The sound of their clatter echoed across the empty TARDIS.  
“Please, Clara,” the face on the screen continued. “Go home, live a long and happy… something, grow up, have your family, see the future, your future. And remember me, and all that we were.”  
“Shut up!” The Doctor shouted. “Shut up! Shut up!” He could feel that hole inside his chest growing, tearing away at his insides. He could see the look on Clara's face in his mind, in the moments before… before...  
“And thank you,” the message continued. “For seeing me.”  
The Doctor screamed. He screamed until his lungs were empty. He screamed until his heart gave out. He screamed until every will he had to live had fled. He screamed, until the tears began to flow.  
There was silence. Even the squeak of his shoes seemed muted as he struggled to stand. The video had finished and shut down. The blinking light to indicate a message had ceased, and now even the TARDIS seemed to have gone quiet.  
He felt as he did when entering the ship. Cold. Alone. Empty. Already he felt the memory of Clara's final moments fading, as though he didn't want to keep it.  
The blinking light was gone, but that didn't stop him. Flicking the switch, he activated the console, and he played the video again.  
“Clara,” it spoke. He heard the reassuring tone of his own voice echoing throughout the TARDIS. Heard the comfort, and consolation he had been trying to reach out through space, reach out to her.  
“You're watching this because this is my last message to you.”  
Once again, the tears streamed down The Doctor's face, and he shut the video off.  
He would never go back there again.


End file.
